As identified in the sixth edition of Alleen Pace Nilsen's and Kenneth L. Donelson's Literature for Today's Young Adults, "achieving emotional independence from parents and other adults" is one of the developmental tasks that must occur during the period of adolescence. A common theme in literature for adolescents is the fractious parent-child relationship, but a teen's achieving a new, emotionally independent relationship with a parent or parents can be exacerbated when a parent is not present, either physically or emotionally.

In Linda Holeman's Raspberry House Blues, Poppy is seeking the birth mother she has never known. However, one can have a birth mother present and still not know who she truly is. Such is the case in Gayle Friesen's Janey's Girl. Although Torontonian Claire Harrison, fourteen, has lived with her single parent mother, Jane, for her entire life, it is not until the two...